Tim Cook says U.S.-built Mac will include ‘many’ components made in U.S.

Late last year, Apple boss Tim Cook said in an interview that the tech giant intended to bring some manufacturing jobs back to the US in 2013 with the opening of a production facility for a line of Mac computers.

Since then, Cook has given few details of the project, although in an interview with Politico this week prior to his appearance in front of a Senate committee regarding the company’s offshore cash pile, he confirmed that the computer set to roll off Apple’s first US-based production line in nearly 20 years will be a refreshed version of a current Mac product.

“We’re going very deep in this project,” Cook told Politico in the interview, which took place on Thursday.

Interestingly, the Apple CEO added that not only will the computer be assembled on US soil, but also many of its components will be made in the US. States coming up with the goods include Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida and Kentucky, the report said.

Some observers had thought most of the components would be shipped in from China before being assembled in the US, but Cook’s assertion that “many” of the computer parts will be manufactured in the US sounds like it really will be a ‘Made in USA’ product.

As for precisely which Mac computer will roll off the production line, well, that’s still open to speculation. While early talk suggested it might be the Mac Pro, Taiwan-based DigiTimes reported at the end of 2012 that, according to “sources from the upstream supply chain”, it’ll be the Mac mini. Sales of the Mac mini – a computer sold without a keyboard, mouse or monitor – are predicted to hit 1.8 million units in 2013, some half a million more than were sold in 2012.

DigiTimes’ report added that manufacturing giant and Apple partner Foxconn already has “about 15” operating bases in the US, with plans to hire workers for new automated production lines.

Cook told Bloomberg last year his company was “really proud” to be bringing jobs back to the US, saying that it had invested more than $100 million in the project.